The Shriver Brief : Poverty Law Commentary & Insights : Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law : Affordable Housing, Healthcare Reform

Thanks to a certain MTV show, young parents are very much in the news, although not in the most nuanced way. The good news is that teen pregnancy has been declining; according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the teen birth rate declined 44% between 1991 and 2010. Even so, according to the campaign “it is still the case that about one-third of teen girls get pregnant by age 20 and there were more than 400,000 births to teens in 2008.”

A recent Clearinghouse Review article examines problems facing a vulnerable subset of young parents: young parents who are themselves in foster care. These parents face not only the difficulties facing all young parents—lack of educational opportunity and financial stress among them—but also intense scrutiny from the social service agencies and attorneys designated as their protectors. 

The article’s authors represent young parents in foster care at New York City’s Center for Family Representation. They explore the tensions that arise when a young parent in foster care has a baby and the local child welfare agency then files a child welfare case against the young parent. In most parts of the country, when a young parent in foster care becomes a respondent in a family court case, the same child welfare agency responsible for the parent’s welfare as a foster child is responsible for proving that she is a neglectful or abusive parent.

Unsurprisingly, the child welfare agency’s double role can raise trust issues for the young parent. Because they often live in congregate placements, such as mother-child placements or maternity residences, young parents are observed more closely than parents who have the means to live independently. When court cases are filed against them, young parents often continue to work with the same agency personnel who have accused them of abusing or neglecting their children—even though those personnel may end up testifying against them in family court.

Also, because the child welfare agency has a special legal relationship with the young parent, the agency has access to her confidential medical and mental health history. Child welfare agencies sometimes include voluminous detail from young parents’ mental health histories in the initial allegations against them—even if the hospitalizations and mental health diagnoses described predate the birth of the young parents’ children by many years. Child welfare agencies almost never have this kind of access to confidential records for parents who are not in foster care, which shows how agencies can use a young parent’s foster care status to her disadvantage.

While some judges have written sympathetically about young parents who are also foster children, the courts have not found any conflict of interest inherent in child welfare agencies simultaneously taking care of a young parent as a foster child and presenting an abuse or neglect case against that young parent. Is this double role right and lawful? If not, what should child welfare agencies be doing about it?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In November 2010, more than 70 percent of voters in Oklahoma approved the “Save Our State” Amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution. That amendment “saved the state” by prohibiting Oklahoma state court judges from considering “the legal precepts of other nations or cultures . . . [s]pecifically, . . . international law or Sharia Law.” The ballot defined Sharia for voters as “Islamic law . . . based on two principal sources, the Koran and the teaching of Mohammed.”

The amendment was immediately challenged in federal court on First Amendment grounds. The plaintiff in the case was Muneer Awad, an American citizen, a Muslim, and the executive director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the Oklahoma State Board of Elections from certifying the results of the vote on the amendment. This decision prevented the amendment from going into effect.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld that injunction, agreeing with the lower court that Awad is likely to win his First Amendment challenge to the anti-Sharia amendment. The case now goes back to the lower court for further proceedings.

As explained by Professor Martha F. Davis and Emily Abraham in last fall’s human rights issue of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, the Oklahoma amendment was merely the most extreme example of a recent wave of state initiatives against Sharia and transnational law (defined as foreign or international law). In the past two years, more than twenty states considered such legislation. At least six of those state proposals specifically targeted Sharia.

Davis and Abraham’s article, “Oklahoma’s Anti-Sharia and Other Antitransnational Proposals: A Backgrounder for Domestic Human Rights Advocates,” puts these state legislative efforts in a larger perspective. They explain that transnational law has a long, nonthreatening history in state courts. For example, state courts sometimes review claims implicating an international law such as the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Occasionally a state case will involve foreign standing and treaty compliance. More generally, state courts may look to transnational law for insight or ideas. Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment would have forbidden all of these legitimate considerations of transnational law.

But what about Sharia? Sharia is broad and applies to topics as diverse as business, contracts, and social issues. Davis and Abraham explain that a written agreement could declare Sharia to be the law of the contract, causing a judge to need to consider Sharia to resolve any legal questions about its meaning. Likewise, child custody or divorce agreements may implicate Sharia. Awad himself asserted that the Oklahoma amendment would prevent a court from probating his will because it contains references to Sharia. Rather than posing a threat to Oklahoma law, these potential uses of Sharia fall within the long tradition of state courts' legitimately considering transnational law in the application of their own state laws.

The Clearinghouse Review special issue on human rights explored how legal advocates may incorporate international human rights ideas into their domestic poverty law practice. Notions such as a human right to housing, health care, or food offer a useful framework for public interest lawyers and can bolster their advocacy. In some states, antitransnational law efforts may have a chilling effect on judges’ receptiveness to this framework, but if the Tenth Circuit’s opinion is any guide, most judges will understand that international and comparative law play an appropriate and important role in our domestic courts.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Children with mental health problems are often treated like troublemakers at school. Without the budgetary resources to train teachers and staff about mental illness, schools frequently punish or suspend children with mental health problems – never stopping to consider whether their problematic behaviors are symptoms of mental illness rather than simple acting out. Thankfully, more and more legal services providers are creating medical-legal partnerships dedicated to representing children with mental health problems who need assistance to obtain appropriate educational services.

Lucas Caldwell-McMillan, an attorney at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, manages one such medical-legal partnership, the St. Louis Children’s Health Advocacy Project. Caldwell-McMillan recounts the collaborative effort that was necessary to obtain the appropriate medical and educational services for two St. Louis kindergarten students in the current issue of Clearinghouse Review. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires school districts to follow a carefully delineated set of procedures when students exhibit symptoms of mental illness or their parents request special education evaluations. Caldwell-McMillan’s clients were repeatedly suspended because of behavioral problems. The school district refused to provide the students with special education evaluations even though their parents requested the evaluations and the students were receiving mental health services outside of their schools. Through the efforts of Caldwell-McMillan and his colleagues—both at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and Grace Hill Murphy-O’Fallon Health Center, where the students were diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other mental health disorders—the school district agreed to conduct special education evaluations for both boys as well as intensive behavior management and tutoring services.

The St. Louis Children’s Health Advocacy Project is not alone in its approach. Legal Services of Greater Miami also participates in a Children’s Health Advocacy Project with South Miami Children’s Clinic. Kevin Probst, an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Miami Children’s Health Advocacy Project, is currently representing an honor roll student with a history of panic attacks and anxiety whose grades declined after she was bullied at school. The school did not protect the student from the bully; instead, the school removed the student from a magnet program due to her declining grades—causing the student’s mental health to deteriorate even further. After unsuccessfully representing the student before her school district, Probst is now filing a due process complaint for her.

The St. Louis Children’s Health Advocacy Project and the Miami Children’s Health Advocacy Project are both part of a network of medical-legal partnerships coordinated by the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership. The Partnership’s roots reach back to 1993 and the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children at Boston Medical Center, which worked to prevent low-income sick children from becoming sicker because of inadequate nutrition, utility shut-offs, and mold. Today, the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership provides support for medical-legal partnerships across the country. The story of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership’s founding emphasizes that children have always been an important part of the medical-legal partnership movement.

The July-August issue of Clearinghouse Review will feature Medical-Legal Partnership: Evolution or Revolution?, written by authors who are intimately familiar with medical-legal partnerships and the National Center for Medical Legal Partnership: Pamela Tames, Colleen Cotter, Suzette Melendez, Steve Scudder and Jeffrey Colvin. This comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of medical-legal partnerships confirms that they can provide cost-effective assistance for clients of any age.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In honor of Americorps week, the Shriver Center would like to recognize the role that Americorps*VISTA members play in helping us to be creative and effective, and to highlight the significant contributions VISTAs make in the Shriver Center’s work to advance social and economic justice.

As a cost-sharing partner to the federally-funded Americorps*VISTA program, the Shriver Center currently has seven ”volunteers in service to America,” each of whom dedicate themselves for one year to building the Shriver Center’s capacity to develop real-world solutions to poverty. Because the needs of low-income people are constantly evolving, the Shriver Center's understanding of the policy environment must be current, and its advocacy efforts must constantly evolve. Through research and outreach, VISTAs help the Shriver Center generate a dynamic information loop in which current information from direct service providers and the low-income people they support is analyzed and applied to help decision makers formulate meaningful approaches to addressing poverty. VISTAs also help the Shriver Center build coalitions with key stakeholders, provide valuable train-the-trainer sessions, and generate reports, websites, and other tools that advocates can use to implement solutions. In addition, VISTAs help raise funds for the Shriver Center, recruit volunteers, and help the Shriver Center improve its advocacy and communication programs.

The VISTAs are currently working on seven projects designed to help the Shriver Center make progress on improving school performance and high school graduation rates, increasing employment and other economic opportunities, increasing financial stability for families, improving access to safe and affordable housing, ensuring healthy futures, and enhancing the capacity of advocates to delivery legal services to low-income people. Each VISTA brings his or her own skills and passion to furthering the Shriver Center’s mission. Here is a snapshot of our current Americorps*VISTA members and the many ways in which they are contributing to the Shriver Center’s success.

Ensuring safety, academic success, and school completion for children and youth who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence
Hannah Green, the VISTA for the Women’s Law and Policy Project, works on a variety of issues that affect women and children. One of Hannah’s main projects is the Ensuring Success in School Initiative. Under this project, she coordinates a coalition of educators, social service providers, students, and advocates who are working to address barriers to school success and completion faced by students who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence. Hannah is also helping to develop curricula for school personnel on how to recognize and respond to these students. 

Promoting housing justice
The recent housing crisis has shown Americans the importance of preserving affordable and safe housing and protecting low-income homeowners and renters from foreclosure. As the VISTA for Housing Justice, Eli Wade-Scott’s projects are focused on safeguarding quality, affordable housing for low-income families. Eli serves as a principal researcher of local, state, and national housing policies and their potential impact on the housing needs of low-income households. In support of the Safe Homes Initiative, Eli also develops user-friendly materials for advocates and survivors of violence so that they can use state and federal laws to protect their housing and safety. 

Bringing attention and financial support to the issue of poverty in America
Our External Affairs VISTA, Alexandra Seabrook, advances the Shriver Center's capacity by building a Shriver Center social and mainstream media program that serves policymakers, media, and other advocates with information on issues affecting low-income people. Alexandra also helps conceptualize, plan, and coordinate fundraising and community outreach events. From a grassroots Facebook campaign to a large-scale raffle, Alexandra has helped raised over $20,000 in the few months she has worked at the Shriver Center. 

Training direct service providers and advocates
Since the 1960s, the Shriver Center has provided advocates around the country with the information and training they need to ensure social and economic justice for their low-income clients. Kathleen McNally, our VISTA for Communication Programs, develops content and provides editorial assistance for the Shriver Center’s bimonthly journal, Clearinghouse Review: Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. Kathleen also assists with marketing and outreach efforts designed to increase advocates’ access to the important resources available from the Shriver Center. 

Addressing barriers to financial stability
One in five American households is asset poor, meaning they lack the resources to sustain themselves at the Federal Poverty Level for three months if all sources of outside income ceased. The current recession has revealed how many Americans will fall into asset poverty in the absence of strong policies to increase financial stability and asset building opportunities. Kelly Ward, the VISTA for the Asset Opportunity Unit, works to advance emerging strategies focused on asset building. Kelly is also involved with coordinating and writing recommendations for the Financial Education Workgroup to increase financial literacy among Illinois students. 

Ensuring health care equity
Rachel Gielau, the Healthy Futures VISTA, works with the health care advocates at the Shriver Center to promote quality, affordable, and accessible health care for all. Rachel’s projects take her into the community as she educates consumers about health care reform and gathers personal stories from people who have had difficulty accessing care. Rachel also contributes to Shriver publications describing the effects of the Affordable Care Act on low-income families.  

Investing in our workforce
As the Employment and Training VISTA, Jessica Palek works to ensure access to employment and career advancement opportunities for people living in poverty. Jessica partners with the Chicago Jobs Council to develop the Illinois Works for the Future Campaign, which seeks to align state strategies in workforce development and economic development and to ensure that these policies and programs are responsive to the needs of disadvantaged populations. Jessica researches and drafts communication on innovative job training and education strategies for people with barriers to employment. She also contributes to the development of an unemployment insurance manual resource tool aimed at assisting individuals apply for these benefits. 

The collective work of the Americorps*VISTA members strengthens and supplements the work of the Shriver Center’s staff. In addition to moving the Shriver Center advocacy agenda forward, the VISTAs help to build partnerships and internal capacities that are strengthening the Shriver Center's financial and staff resources and helping us make progress towards our organizational goals for long-term sustainability. The Shriver Center is grateful for the excellent work of all of the VISTAs who work in service to America to advance social and economic justice.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Poverty law advocates face unique ethics questions. Sometimes these questions are on the front burner; sometimes ethics issues recede as attorneys face the daily crises of keeping people housed, helping clients get orders of protection, or assisting in applications for unemployment insurance benefits. But the ethics questions never go away entirely, and the traditional resources available to resolve the questions often don’t seem entirely relevant. In fact, these resources can seem like they’re written for advocates in a parallel universe.

In 2011 the editorial team at Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy hopes to help advocates find their way through the ethics thicket with contributions in print or online from experienced poverty lawyers who’ve grappled with the myriad ethics issues that arise in representing low-income clients. As part of our regular outreach to readers, Clearinghouse Review conducted an online survey December 2010–February 2011, to find out which ethics questions advocates encounter in their daily work.

We asked seven questions about the ethics issue that readers encounter every day. Those of you who responded said that in day-to-day practice ethics questions most often arose out of “conflict of interest” issues and in determining case strategy when client competence was an issue. The most prevalent conflicts of interest were those between program clients and those between family members. Slightly more than half of respondents stated that they faced unresolved ethical quandaries in their practice, while slightly less than half did not. Two-thirds answering the survey found that the Rules of Professional Responsibility were inadequate in addressing their particular needs, citing the failure to address conflict of interest questions when representation is of limited scope, when the respondent’s legal aid organization is the only recourse for the prospective client, and when the client has competency issues. The substantive areas in which ethical questions arose most often were family law, estate planning and probate, and also housing law.

Survey Responses

A. Ethics Questions Faced. We asked survey respondents to choose from six categories (including “other”) in answering the following question:  “What ethics questions do you see in your practice?”

• 80% chose conflict of interest, with slightly more of those conflicts occurring among program clients (62%) than among family members (58%).
• 69% found “client determination of case strategy when competence is in question” to be an issue.
• 58.3% encountered lack of truthfulness by clients or witnesses in documents or before a tribunal.
• 51.5% found supervisions of lawyers who are less experience, paralegals and nonlawyers to pose ethics issues.
• 18% chose “other” ethical questions.

Respondents who chose “other” ethical questions were asked to specify those ethical quandaries. Many elaborated upon the number one concern cited above—conflict of interest—and cited the difficulty in determining whether to accept a case in the face of a possible conflict when the legal aid organization was the only recourse for the prospective client. Other ethical questions included whether providing information or helpline advice created an attorney-client relationship, and how to interpret rules governing ghostwriting pleadings. Survey respondents also commented on client competency (second in popularity above). Those who commented found that client incompetency—whether arising from mental illness, dementia, Alzheimer’s or something else—was an issue in signing retainers, determining case strategy, or that it often was a source of conflict within families. Also cited were communications with pro se opponents, reporting abusive behavior by attorneys towards indigent clients, and client action that might be illegal.

B. Conflict of Interest. Participants were asked to choose from two categories and “other” in answering: What types of conflict of interest do you see?

• 76% of readers chose conflict of interest among family members.
• 78% of readers chose conflict interest among program clients.
• Close to 10% chose “other” types of conflict of interest.

Readers choosing “other” types of conflict of interest listed conflicts between tenants, facility residents, and co-counseling legal aid organizations. Also cited were conflicts between legal aid organizations and pro bono conflicts panels that have prohibited the legal aid organization from providing legal assistance, but whose volunteer attorneys seek that organization’s help anyway. Conflict among coworkers was also listed as causing ethics questions.

C. Unresolved Ethical Quandaries. Participants were asked the open-ended questions of: Does your program face unresolved ethical quandaries?

Respondents were close to evenly divided on this question:

• 51% said Yes
• 49% said No.

Respondents who said that their program faces unresolved ethical quandaries were asked to be specific. Many  had questions about conflicts of interest between past clients and prospective clients and whether limited-scope representation was enough to create a conflict. Should legal service providers who are the sole resource in the area turn away clients because of conflict of interest concerns? If former clients do present conflict questions, does that mean recurring issues will always be resolved in former clients’ favor? Specific issues cited were:

• Conflicts when an organization has provided limited representation (such as phone information or advice, help with forms) to one client and another client seeking full representation has divergent interests. What are the duties to former clients? Does limited representation create a potential conflict? How long does a past client present a potential conflict?
• Conflicts when an organization has given full representation to a past client and needs to take on a client with opposing interests. What are duties to former clients? This was seen as particularly troubling in family law cases, especially when representing spouses. This was a problem in domestic violence cases as well as in cases where one spouse is represented on a limited issue, such as a consumer issue, and the other spouse seeks representation for a divorce. Other examples were co-tenant family members seeking to evict each other.
• Who is the client when the legal service organization is representing a minor—the parents or the minor?
• When representing clients who are deemed incompetent or have mental health issues, when, if ever, is it okay to make decisions for them? Should you have them sign a retainer? What happens when the client’s family members squabble over the course of action?
• What is the duty of organizations that provide the sole resource in area and are pressured to take all cases?
• What are the requirements in building firewalls?
• How do you balance quantity of case load versus quality of representation?

D. Participants were asked “Do the Rules of Professional Responsibility address the ethical questions that arise in your practice”?

• Two-thirds said Yes
• One-third said No.

Those who answered “no” were asked what changes should be made and to identify additional issues the Rules should address.

1.      Regarding changes, a few respondentscommented that the Rules are ambiguous; one person commented that the rules should not allow different legal services offices to give advice to both parties in a case.

2.      Regarding additional issues that the Rules should address, survey respondents commented that the Rules:

• Do not address issues that arise in the civil legal aid area, in particular that clients may have no alternative to the legal aid organization from which they are seeking representation.
• Do not address high-volume, limited-resource legal aid providers.
• Do not define the term “client.” Many legal aid organizations provide limited representation through hotlines and clinics and online pleadings. Does this limited representation create a potential conflict?
• Do not address issues in which the client has mental health issues, is incompetent due to illness such as dementia or Alzheimer’s, or has a substance addiction. When is it appropriate to get a retainer? Who determines case strategy? What happens when the client is uncooperative? What happens if family members disagree with case strategy?

E. Finally, practitioners were asked “In what substantive areas of your program’s practice do the most ethics questions arise.” Many of those responding mentioned multiple areas of law in which ethics questions arise.

·         Almost half of those surveyed listed family law as an area in which most ethics questions arose. This includes domestic violence as it was sometimes included within family law.

·         Over one-third of those surveyed chose housing law (including landlord/tenant issues, family conflict over housing).

Other areas identified were public benefits/welfare, mental health, incompetency (including third parties calling on “behalf” of a client), and working with persons with disabilities. The following issues were each chosen by one or two respondents: consumer, immigration, medical assistance, education, untruthful clients, torts, tax, and disaster assistance.

F. Respondents were asked to give information about themselves. Thirty-two respondents did so. Of the thirty-two that responded about equal numbers (7) hailed from the Northeast, Midwest and South. Four were from the Northwest and four from California. Twenty-three of twenty-five respondents were LSC-funded organizations.

What’s your experience with ethical quandaries? Does your program have a process for resolving them? We welcome your comments and questions, which will inform our editorial process and help us to develop useful content for future issues of Clearinghouse Review.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The passing of Sargent Shriver brought about a satisfying outpouring of tributes. His personality was a unique combination of larger-than-life and down-to-earth. He came annually to our fund-raisers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and I had a chance to see him in action. He clearly loved people. And they clearly loved him. His constant message was both upbeat and demanding: “What have you done today to make the world a better place?” he would ask with a gleam in his eye, conveying his confidence that you not only could do it but also would love doing it. People left with an excitement about being of service.

Shriver was a brilliant thinker and tactician. He launched many life-changing programs that are still vibrant: good ideas created to tackle real problems discerned at the community level. They were launched with tactical skill, pragmatic good sense, and that rare Shriver energy—upbeat and demanding. These ideas flowed from Shriver’s values and his big-picture strategic vision that transcended his own time and place and set of circumstances and generated staying power.

Among those transcendent values were peace and peace building. Joby Taylor, who directs the Shriver Peaceworker Program at the “other” Shriver Center, located at the University of Maryland–Baltimore County, published a beautiful tribute that highlighted Shriver’s compelling concept of practical idealism: “[B]ecause service highlights our common humanity even as it solves real and pressing problems, it is a primary pathway to peace. . . . The experience of working alongside others and solving problems … instills in us a sense of the usefulness of our idealism.” Amen. Joby’s main focus is the Peace Corps and service learning, but he was describing the best aspects of legal services work, too.

The aspect of peace building that revealed itself in Shriver’s original vision for legal services was an eyes-open realism about power. Shriver located legal services within community action agencies. The lawyers were not only to represent community members in court to assure them equal access to civil justice but also to represent community leaders and the community itself in the solution of wider problems identified locally. The lawyers were to bring their skills to bear to increase the power of community interests to be players on issues of policy and social systems that might affect them.

This was a realistic understanding about producing peace in spite of conflict. Peace will not come if people experience inevitable and constant defeat in public policy matters, and peace cannot be manufactured by eliminating all conflict. No matter how much society ameliorates the losers, they eventually become frustrated and dangerously uninterested in legitimate policy processes. The tension between haves and have-nots, and between groups with competing interests, is a constant feature of the human condition. Conceding the presence of conflict, Shriver concentrated instead on promoting a fair process to deal with conflict. Providing lawyers, with their expertise and advocacy skills, to serve low-income communities in public policy conflicts was a way to level the playing field. Low-income communities would have an improved chance to assert their interests, to win their share, to influence outcomes—to be players on issues that affect them. And, feeling empowered, they will invest in the process, tolerate setbacks, and have the confidence to resolve conflicts through compromise. Peace proceeds from arm’s-length handling of public policy conflicts, and this brings low-income communities into the flow of American life. Practical realism indeed.

Fifty years later, legal services programs are vindicating Shriver’s moral vision of building peace through service. They are also recognizing the lasting wisdom of his insight that, by building the power of communities to be players in policy debates on issues that affect them, legal services lawyers build peace in a very realistic way.

This blog post will also be published as a letter to subscribers in the January-February issue of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Mercedes Cruz, a Spanish-speaking mother of three in New York City, depends on public assistance benefits for survival. But ever since Ms. Cruz opened her public assistance case in 2007, her public assistance office has failed to provide her with a Spanish interpreter at her appointments. Her repeated requests for a Spanish-speaking caseworker have also been denied. Additionally, the office has frequently mailed Ms. Cruz important documents in English. Because Ms. Cruz could not understand the documents, she missed multiple deadlines – nearly resulting in the closure of her public assistance case. 

Ms. Cruz is now a plaintiff in a pending lawsuit brought by Legal Services NYC seeking proper enforcement of The Equal Access to Human Services Act of 2003 (Local Law 73). Local Law 73 is a New York City law requiring the city’s Human Resources Administration centers, which administer public assistance, food stamps, and Medicaid benefits in New York City, to provide limited-English-proficient (LEP) clients with translation and interpretation services. On paper, New York City’s LEP residents should be receiving adequate translation and interpretation services whenever they encounter city agencies. Not only are LEP New Yorkers protected by Local Law 73, but in July 2008 Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed Executive Order 120, which requires all city agencies providing direct public services to ensure that LEP clients receive appropriate translation and interpretation services. Executive Order 120 also requires city agencies to develop and implement language access policies. 

Despite all of these legal protections, advocates continue to find that New York City’s LEP residents are being denied language assistance when they seek access to housing, health care, and public benefits. Accordingly, in August 2009 Legal Services NYC filed its lawsuit in state court on behalf of Ms. Cruz, and five other individual plaintiffs. In December 2009 Legal Services NYC added six more plaintiffs to its case, including MinKwon Center for Community Action, a Flushing-based group advocating on behalf of Korean Americans. Legal Services NYC now anticipates that depositions will begin in January 2011.

Ms. Cruz’s story is very familiar to attorneys and advocates who work with low-income LEP clients. Low-income LEP clients face challenges at every turn, even though Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination on the basis of individuals’ national origin – which includes the languages they speak. Accordingly, Title VI requires programs that receive federal assistance to provide LEP individuals with appropriate language access services. These services can include interpretation at meetings and court appearances as well as the translation of relevant documents. 

Any entity that receives federal funding, either directly or indirectly, is subject to Title VI, including the prohibition on discrimination on the basis of national origin. As a recent New York Times article discussed, police departments are subject to Title VI if they receive federal grant money. Two other groups of programs subject to the requirements of Title VI are state and county court systems and legal aid offices that receive federal funding. In December 2004 the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) published a helpful guidance document outlining LSC programs’ obligations toward their LEP clients. The May-June 2010 issue of Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Law and Policy contains three articles examining language access issues that are essential reading for legal aid attorneys or any practitioner representing LEP clients. In “Language Access in State Courts,” Laura K. Abel explains why Title VI obligates state and county courts to provide competent language access services to litigants, as well as how state and county court personnel can meet the requirements of Title VI. Abel also provides practical guidelines for court interpreter programs and suggestions for how advocates can improve state and county courts for their LEP clients.

Also in the May-June 2010 issue, Michael Mulé’s “Language Access 101” is a valuable resource for any legal aid attorney struggling with how to effectively and ethically represent LEP clients. Mulé outlines the responsibilities that legal aid attorneys have towards their LEP clients and provides pragmatic approaches for how they can assess the size and needs of their LEP populations. Lastly, in “How Effective Is Machine Translation of Legal Information?” Mulé and Claudia Johnson scrutinize one frequently-discussed solution to the problems faced by LEP clients: machine-translation. Their nuanced discussion of these services’ strengths and limitations suggests that for LEP clients such as Mercedes Cruz, progress towards full compliance with Title VI depends on the cultivation and pooling of language resources rather than a dependence on machine translation.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

I am a dyed-in-the-wool legal aid lawyer. Of my 14 years practicing law, I spent only one year in private practice. And although I appreciate to this day many of the skills I gained, I scurried back to legal aid faster than you can say “pay cut.” I love it all--the challenges, the many underdog days, and the deep satisfaction found from helping others in need. I am humbled by my colleagues and their dedication and even more humbled by my clients and their willingness to stand up for what is right.

Over the last six years, my poverty law practice has evolved. As the cases we have taken on got bigger and more complex, so too did the challenges of bringing and financing this litigation. Partnering with law firms enabled us to advance our advocacy agenda without the worry over costs that frequently accompany litigation. Those pro bono partnerships also enabled us to be better lawyers and advocates as we worked alongside seasoned and exceptionally skilled lawyers.

The Shriver Center’s experience with the Chicago, Illinois, office of Reed Smith is a great example of a successful pro bono partnership. Reed Smith attorneys have worked with us on three major housing and civil rights cases. By working together to build each case and share responsibilities, we were able to accomplish a lot of good and advance social justice along the way.

But we also had a lot of fun. I only hope that Reed Smith found as much joy working on these cases as we did: when a group of clients, well into their 80s and 90s, protested at the offices of one of the potential defendants and forced from them an on-the-spot apology; when the federal law changed (to our clients’ benefit) on the eve of a Seventh Circuit brief being due; and when we got to tell a client that their actions not only changed the law but helped thousands of people like them.

That is the joy of law and of helping people in need that you do not soon forget. Our many thanks to the pro bono attorneys at Reed Smith for their partnership, and to all of the law firms and lawyers who rise to this important challenge.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

Among the many uncertainties relating to the fallout of the BP oil spill in April off the Louisiana coast, there is at least one certainty: poor people and communities will be especially hard hit—their livelihoods, their homes, and their health, to name a few.  An “explosion” of poverty is expected in the Gulf Coast area, according to one advocate participating in the June 22, 2010, Clearinghouse Review readers’ conference call, on which 19 advocates representing nine states discussed the oil spill, state budget cuts, foreclosures, health care reform, and other legal topics.

Legal aid advocates and volunteers in the Gulf Coast communities are gearing up to assist clients with employment, housing, tax, and language access issues and claims. For example, they are compiling helpful resources on LawHelp, Louisiana’s online guide to free legal help, administered by Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, and on ProBonoNet. Already overloaded and underfunded, legal aid programs in the Gulf Coast are working together to figure out what their role is in the aftermath of this unnatural disaster and how to most effectively assist the expected surge of clients.

Conference call participants from other parts of the country discussed how state budget cuts are affecting their clients, ideas for establishing and preserving utility assistance for poor people, questions about working with the Social Security Administration on overpayment issues, the need for achieving relief in mold cases, and the challenges of accessing benefits in an era of web-based applications and declining access to public libraries’ computers, among others. Which of these topics would you most like to see covered in Clearinghouse Review? Vote now in a new two-question survey.

The discussion was part of a regular conference call series hosted by Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, a publication of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. Want to share your advocacy stories and article suggestions? Clearinghouse Review will host another conference call in October, tentatively scheduled for October 26. For more information, contact Shriver Center staff attorney–legal editor Catherine Dorn Schreiber.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Data suggest that poverty rates in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community may be higher than in the general population. A recent study published by the Williams Institute found that 24% of lesbians and bisexual women were poor compared with only 19% of heterosexual women. Moreover, poverty rates for children of same-sex couples were twice as high as those for children of married couples. Another study found that 23% of the transgender community in California lived below the poverty level.

There are many reasons that LGBT people experience more poverty than their heterosexual counterparts. LGBT people sometimes lose the support of their families when they come out. They are more vulnerable to employment discrimination than the general population. And, because of their lack of access to marriage in most states, LGBT people may face difficulties accessing health insurance and other necessary benefits.

What is, and what should be, the response of legal services advocates? Health care, housing, retirement, and estate planning are all areas in which low-income LBGT older adults may need advocates to help them tailor the law to their particular needs. Medicare-participating long-term nursing facilities much comply with “quality-of-life” requirements, and Section 8 housing can be used to secure long-term housing for LGBT partners. Advocates can help LGBT older adults arrange their affairs and name beneficiaries to reflect these individuals’ wishes and protect their partners.

Advocates interested in learning more should check out the March-April issue of Clearinghouse Review, which features two articles on meeting the legal needs of LGBT clients.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Today we are seeing the needs of military families being raised to level of national importance. First Lady Michelle Obama, along with Dr. Jill Biden, has made improving the lives of military families her signature issue, and this is reflected in a proposed expansion in funding for military support programs in the president’s 2011 budget. Improving the focus on military family issues is welcome, as the burdens placed on the men and women of our armed forces have increased throughout the past decade, where active-duty servicemembers have become accustomed to frequent and lengthy deployments overseas. This trend has imposed great challenges on our military families, which may not end upon the servicemember’s discharge into our already-sizable veteran population. These include, unfortunately, a full range of legal issues, many of which are unique to those currently and formerly serving in the armed forces.

As these legal needs have grown, they have been met with many local, state, and national initiatives enabling attorneys to step forward to deliver much-needed legal help to active-duty sevicemembers and veterans. And where military culture had historically adopted a “we take care of our own” attitude when it came to providing legal services to its members, the military legal assistance establishment is now grateful for the support of and collaboration with the private bar to act as a “force multiplier” to extend the range of services and legal counsel available to servicemembers, often delivered at a reduced cost or free-of-charge by the civilian attorneys.

There is much that a private bar attorney can to do aid our current and former servicemembers. Many military families encounter civil legal needs, such as:

• landlord/tenant matters, including deposit recovery problems related to Servicemember Civil Relief Act (SCRA) lease terminations;
• family law issues, especially child custody disputes arising around overseas deployment;
• credit and lending problems, which can include payday loans, auto sales contracts, and interest rate reductions under the SCRA;
• employment issues, particularly for National Guard members and Reservists needing to enforce reemployment rights;
• guardianship needs, or estate matters on behalf of families of deceased servicemembers; and
• securing vitally-needed benefits for veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In the fall of 2009, the Shriver Center published a special issue of Clearinghouse Review featuring articles written by military and civilian attorneys on these and other topics affecting veterans, servicemembers, and their families. This issue of the Review is an important tool supporting work done to expand access to justice for current and former military members, and it is available online for subscribers; nonsubscribers may purchase individual articles, or order the entire special issue. Any military legal assistance attorney may have free access to the issue through the American Bar Association Military Pro Bono Project website. Attorneys, whether in legal aid, pro bono, or private practice, can do much to help military families, and this issue of the Review illuminates how such assistance can be provided.

For more discussion on these issues and the important role that can be played by members of the civilian bar, please join our Shriver Center Dialogue on Accessing Justice: Military Veterans, Servicemembers, and Their Families, Friday, February 26, 2010, at DLA Piper 203 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60601, at 8:15 a.m. Presenters will include advocates working to meet the legal needs of this important population. We hope you will join us to find out how you can get involved with giving back to those who have sacrificed so much for us.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Federal and state governments are overwhelmed solving the unprecedented combination of problems caused by the distressed economy, health care reform, and crises in state and federal budgets. Even the experts cannot easily answer the complicated and overlapping questions raised by these difficulties. These same problems intensify the hardships of people already struggling in poverty. They lead to more people going hungry, and losing their jobs or homes.

Clearinghouse Review editors are looking to lighten the load of advocates whose hands are full helping struggling families and seeking social and economic justice for their client communities. For 2010, we plan to publish articles that will assist advocates in solving client problems related to income, jobs, housing, budget crises, and racial justice. Here are a few examples.

Pursuant to the settlement of a nationwide class action, the income of thousands of older adults and people with disabilities may be increased by more than $500 million in retroactive social security benefits.  Attorneys from the National Senior Citizens Law Center  describe the settlement in a recent Clearinghouse Review article. This article is part of a major outreach effort to ensure that eligible clients receive the benefits that they were illegally denied under the Social Security Administration’s “fleeing felon” policy. 

As foreclosures continue and more people lose their homes, advocates across the country are experimenting with different ways to help their clients. In two recent articles, one resourceful author makes the case for a right to counsel in foreclosure actions. In another article, authors from California approach advocacy from a different angle. They recommend that advocates explore the importance of “frames”--the stories and explanations embedded in our thought patterns about the way society and the world work--in how they communicate about the issues that matter to their clients and in their advocacy. Giving specific examples of what language to use and what to avoid, they present the theory and application of framing as an advocacy tool, in particular in race equity advocacy.

We are interested in your feedback on these article topics and your ideas for other topics we might cover this year. I invite you to connect with us by:

• commenting on this blog;
  
• signing up for one of our occasional readers' conference calls (look for dates in the free Clearinghouse Review News enewsletter);
  
• participating in our discussion group on Facebook;
  
• filling out the online readers' survey for the most recent issue of the Review.

Through Clearinghouse Review we hope to offer innovative and effective legal strategies in representing low-income people and their communities. The more we hear and learn from you, the better we are able to plan content that is meaningful and relevant to your practice.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks